Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has just passed away.
Personally and, for as long as I have been aware, and whether or not there can or should be preferences about it, he has been the one with whom I have connected the most. I have already spoken about this in another article.
I am not a Christian in customs, nor in practice, but in faith.
A liberal Christian who does not strictly adhere to the norms of the Church but who considers its theology the basis and the necessary root for a serene and temperate society.
I believe in the fundamental principles of Christianity as a way of ordering the lives of individuals, and today’s social engineering seems to me to be a disruptive perversion of humanity, a metaphorically, diabolical transhumanism.
In a Christian but open society, there is room, or should be room, for all men and women of any ethnicity, social condition or sexual orientation. However, in moderation and through continuous work on oneself linked to integrating body and spirit.
What is happening in Europe, and what Benedict XVI was critical of, is a process of disintegration and decadence apparently dressed up as modernity and freedom.
Not only the family is under attack but all kinds of institutions connected with tradition.
On the basis of a crude egalitarianism, where not even merit will count, the aim is to undo any communal connection between people.
The aim is to turn each individual into a lost and vindictive atom, a fragile and hysterical being, narcissistic and with broken self-esteem, in need of an idyllic social projection of his or her being while remaining in the most absolute vacuum, which condemns him or her, from a psychological perspective, to mental disorder.
The lack of roots with one’s own history, with the nation, with the ancestors, with the collective to which one belongs, leads to guilt, indeterminacy and insecurity.
This is why it is necessary to reclaim the concept of “aristocracy of the spirit” as well as a certain elitism, not classism, of those who continuously struggle, whatever their origin, and even risk in many areas, to evolve as people in every sense of the word. And all this with the intention of becoming more cultured, compassionate, prosperous, harmonious in manners and customs, and to be aware at all times of what differentiates the noble from the vulgar.
If the connection with the personal and collective history of belonging is strengthened, without considering it better or worse than others, but respecting it and continuing with what the ancestors built, be they those of your family, your community or your civilisation, an inner strength emerges that gives meaning to one’s own life.
Adding faith in something that transcends us, be it God or a conception of existence that goes beyond physical death, can help us to have the strength to stand firm in the face of all those, very powerful today, who are at the service of the demolition of all that is sacred, wherever it may be.
Collectively one can still do nothing, personally one can become firm and direct in one’s objectives, and stand by them, disregarding any fashion or ephemeral and destructive ideological tendency.
The truth, as Benedict XVI said, is much stronger and will undoubtedly prevail in the end.
Damián Ruiz
Barcelona, January 2, 2023
www.damianruiz.eu